'Cause sometimes we don't really notice just how good it can get
so maybe we should start all over
so maybe we should start all over
The admission is everything she has wanted to hear for years now. Well before the war ever started. Perhaps not an apology as she may have dreamed, but those two little words give her closure she didn't know she was still waiting on. And while she has never wanted to hurt him, those years of pain may have been forgiven, but they have not been forgotten.
"I care," she murmurs, because she would never rebuff his attempts at healing the damage that had been done between them. Not if they were sincere. "But are you really moving on? My own feelings aside -" because she can't let them interfere here, she can't, even if someone else might say something pithy and cliche such as follow your heart, "- how is reaching for the last person you ever loved healing?" The prospect of coming together again should have her heart racing with anticipation, but instead, she only feels cold. If Maea were alive, would he ask her this? Any of the others he had loved in their short time? Perhaps Hotaru had been longer, or more serious, or any other excuse that he could conjure to appease her - but how can she know? How can she trust him?
All may have been forgiven, but in its place trust has not magically bloomed.
Ru would trust him with her life, but her heart is a different matter.
Except it doesn't end there. He sounds sad, she thinks. Defeated. What she had privately dreamed to be a painful but altogether positive moment is shrouded by the hurt she can see emanating off of him. It makes her realize that maybe that dream has always been out of reach, kept alive only by leeching off the feelings she has never managed to pry out of her heart.
“I am a shell now, Hotaru. Who wants to deal with that?”
"So you would condemn me alongside you? You think I deserve to deal with that, but nobody else?" Her arms tighten around herself; this time, she can't pretend it's anything but a restraint that keeps her from throwing all self-preservation to the wind to throw herself into his arms. "Every day I try to be better than the one before. I'm trying to heal too. And frankly I think you know that I love you, and that I would do most anything for you, sometimes against my better judgment." Her voice trembles, because it is the hardest boundary she has ever had to notch into the sand but it might be all that saves her from backsliding and losing all the hard-won progress she has made. "But how is that not still using me, to count on that?"
Crossing the distance between them is a dangerous thing to do, but as Hotaru sinks to her knees in front of him and reaches up to touch his face, she prays she will have the strength to retain her presence of mind. "Sunjata Wrenzoak, I have loved you as long as I've known you. But I want to see you truly heal. And I don't think that's what this is." At least not right now. Not if he still sees himself as a shell, a burden. And he always has, but this is different. She can sense it. "If you see yourself as a weight, as a curse, then why would you wish it upon me? Someone you love?" Why not prove to me you want to be something more than this?
"I care," she murmurs, because she would never rebuff his attempts at healing the damage that had been done between them. Not if they were sincere. "But are you really moving on? My own feelings aside -" because she can't let them interfere here, she can't, even if someone else might say something pithy and cliche such as follow your heart, "- how is reaching for the last person you ever loved healing?" The prospect of coming together again should have her heart racing with anticipation, but instead, she only feels cold. If Maea were alive, would he ask her this? Any of the others he had loved in their short time? Perhaps Hotaru had been longer, or more serious, or any other excuse that he could conjure to appease her - but how can she know? How can she trust him?
All may have been forgiven, but in its place trust has not magically bloomed.
Ru would trust him with her life, but her heart is a different matter.
Except it doesn't end there. He sounds sad, she thinks. Defeated. What she had privately dreamed to be a painful but altogether positive moment is shrouded by the hurt she can see emanating off of him. It makes her realize that maybe that dream has always been out of reach, kept alive only by leeching off the feelings she has never managed to pry out of her heart.
“I am a shell now, Hotaru. Who wants to deal with that?”
"So you would condemn me alongside you? You think I deserve to deal with that, but nobody else?" Her arms tighten around herself; this time, she can't pretend it's anything but a restraint that keeps her from throwing all self-preservation to the wind to throw herself into his arms. "Every day I try to be better than the one before. I'm trying to heal too. And frankly I think you know that I love you, and that I would do most anything for you, sometimes against my better judgment." Her voice trembles, because it is the hardest boundary she has ever had to notch into the sand but it might be all that saves her from backsliding and losing all the hard-won progress she has made. "But how is that not still using me, to count on that?"
Crossing the distance between them is a dangerous thing to do, but as Hotaru sinks to her knees in front of him and reaches up to touch his face, she prays she will have the strength to retain her presence of mind. "Sunjata Wrenzoak, I have loved you as long as I've known you. But I want to see you truly heal. And I don't think that's what this is." At least not right now. Not if he still sees himself as a shell, a burden. And he always has, but this is different. She can sense it. "If you see yourself as a weight, as a curse, then why would you wish it upon me? Someone you love?" Why not prove to me you want to be something more than this?
start all over again
Hotaru
